20.4 mile run this morning with the club. They all were actually doing 15 miles so they took me up an extra 5 up past Veyo. This run was scary similar to a run I did on Aug 4, 2007. It was within seconds on both parts of the run. I had originally planned (today) to try and do the second ten miles at around 5:20 pace... this to try and equal a workout that I had done on September 8, 2007... pretty aggressive considering that was one of my top 5 best running performances ever! Today it just wasn't happening. I had to work a little too hard on the first half to hit the 6:38 pace I ended up with- then on the second half there wasn't a lot of kick. Plus there was a mild headwind that cost me about 10 seconds a mile, and I'm at the end of a really high mileage week (for me). To top all of that off I'm trying to teach my legs how to run fast again. I have to remind myself that it is only March 8 and we are very early in the year to have much speed at all. Goal for the spring/summer is to run that second 10 miles at 5:10 pace or faster! Total- 2:03:54 for 20 miles.
PART 1: 6:38 min mile pace for the first 10 miles. 1:06:44
PART 2: 5:42 min mile pace for the last 10 miles. 57:10 Here are the splits for the last 10 miles although they really aren't that impressive: 1. 5:58- taking a GU and running with a drink 2. 5:25- Nice relaxed mile 3. 5:36- Met the headwind for the first time and battle it on in! 4. 5:47- Wind 5. 5:56- This is a pathetic mile it should have been 20 seconds faster on that grade... Bad wind though. 6. 6:00- Battling up the hill by Winchester and the wind 7. 5:38- Really try to get some turnover and save the workout! 8. 5:27- A little better but still should have been faster. 9. 5:38- Blah! 10. 5:40- Should be close to a 5 min mile on this section. I do have to stop completely at the light and stop the watch (sucks because now I'm not really going to get going again). So the good news of the workout is that I didn't bail off and pull out of tempo gear. Although it was very tempting at some points. I'm happy that inside of a 120+ mile week I could hit the same caliber of workout that I was hitting last year in August. Around .4 miles of cool down. It should have been more but I was trying to get home to go the the track meet with my wife. (Red Stratus 152.7) | 